Paul R. Williams – IAMNOTASTALKER

June 14, 2019June 13, 2019

Mary’s House from “All About Steve”

If you listened to critics, you probably think All About Steve has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. You’d be wrong, though. While the 2009 comedy (and I use the term “comedy” loosely) is not remotely funny, boasts an odd storyline, and fails to properly showcase the talents of its fabulous cast, which includes Bradley Cooper, Sandra Bullock, Thomas Haden Church, Ken Jeong and DJ Qualls, it does feature some pretty stellar locations. The delightfully retro residence where Mary Horowitz (Bullock) lives with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Horowitz (Howard Hesseman and Beth Grant, respectively), in the flick especially had me drooling. I, of course, set out to track it down shortly after first viewing All About Steve ten years ago, but was unsuccessful. And though I subsequently revisited the hunt several times over the years following, I always came up empty. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to call in the big guns (aka my friend Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog), to see if he might be able to provide some assistance and in less than 24 hours he had an address for me. Thanks to a helpful crew member, we learned that the Horowitz home is located at 1704 Wellington Road in Mid-City’s Lafayette Square neighborhood. So I immediately ran out to stalk it.

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In real life, the All About Steve house is known as the J. Phyromn Taylor Residence. The two-story pad was designed in 1953 by prolific architect Paul Revere Williams (you can read a few of my posts on his many famous properties here, here, here, here, here, here and here) for his good friend, wealthy doctor Jackson Phyromn Taylor.

Built in a style known as Los Angeles Contemporary, the home also boasts prairie, international, and midcentury design elements, as well as a lot of geometric detailing. Per The Paul Revere Williams Project website, “The motif was used in a floating staircase flanked by a dramatic two-story sandblasted glass wall, metal work, etched room dividers, light fixtures and other midcentury-style custom furnishings designed for the space.”

Williams also incorporated Lafayette Square’s strict design regulations into the architecture of the residence, which included a second-floor balcony, deep setbacks, clean lines and a horizonal layout, with the long end fronting the street.

Sadly, Dr. Taylor passed away just a few short years after his home was completed, but the extraordinary residence remains in his family today. It is currently owned by Lauren Smith, his granddaughter, who told the Larchmont Ledger, “They [Jackson Phyromn Taylor and his wife, Pearl] surrounded themselves with art, music their entire lives. My uncle Phyromn was an accomplished jazz saxophonist so music was definitely a part of our lives. My mom was a music major in college as well. Very social, Paul Williams designed their house with their desire to entertain in mind. My grandparents were proud to have an African American man, their friend, design their unique house.”

The home features 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, a whopping 5,062 square feet of living space, a 2-car garage, and a 0.27-acre lot.

Unfortunately, the property looks quite a bit different today than it did onscreen in All About Steve. Not only is it now significantly covered over with foliage, but it has undergone a drastic paint change. The result is a residence that is much darker and less aesthetically pleasing, at least in my opinion. In fact, if it had boasted its current color scheme in the movie, I probably wouldn’t have been nearly as enamored of it.

Due to the pad’s rectangular orientation and decidedly midcentury feel, I had been convinced that it was an apartment building, not a single-family home, in real life.

And because of the mansion-like properties situated next door . . .

. . . and across the street, I knew it had to be located in an upscale neighborhood. Accordingly, I spent copious hours searching Hancock Park and West Hollywood for a midcentury apartment complex, so it’s no surprise that I couldn’t find the place. Somehow I had completely forgotten about Lafayette Square, an area I’ve been to a few times and even written about – twice! Thank goodness for the helpful crew member who provided Owen with the address!

The J. Phyromn Taylor Residence popped up several times in All About Steve.

The movie did a fabulous job of showcasing the dwelling . . .

. . . and all of its unique architectural details.

As fabulous as those details are, it was the interior of the Horowitz home that really stole my heart, namely the floating staircase. The openness of the steps, the paned glass panel behind them, and the stone walls on either side practically had me drooling.

I am torn as to whether what was shown onscreen was the real interior of the J. Phyromn Taylor Residence or a set modeled after it, though I’m leaning toward the former. As you can see below, the glass panel pictured behind the stairs in All About Steve is a perfect match to that of the actual home.

And the geometric elements visible in several scenes, like the open metal wall in the foreground below . . .

. . . and the silver sculpture to the left of the pool table, mesh with the interior detailing described on The Paul Revere Williams Project website.

I am fairly certain, though, that Mary’s colorful bedroom . . .

. . . and bathroom were just sets.

Either way, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that place!

Big THANK YOU to my friend Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The J. Phyromn Taylor Residence, aka the Horowitz home from All About Steve, is located at 1704 Wellington Road in Lafayette Square. The McGinley Residence, where Robert F. Kennedy is reported to have spent his last night, is right around the corner at 1821 South Victoria Avenue. And the incorrectly identified Leave It to Beaver house is two blocks west at 1727 Buckingham Road.

February 20, 2019February 14, 2019

Carlotta’s House from “Hail, Caesar!”

Today’s locale involves something I’ve never come across in all my years of stalking! Last June, a reader named Molly posted a comment on my Challenge Lindsay page asking for some help in tracking down the house where Carlotta Valdez (Veronica Osorio) lived in the 2016 Coen Brothers comedy Hail, Caesar! She mentioned that two places had actually been used to portray the exterior of the residence and that while she had found one, she was still looking for the other. Somehow I had never heard of the film (and I love a good Hollywood farce!), but was fascinated by the query. A Google search led me to an L.A. Weekly article chronicling a few of the movie’s sites which backed up Molly’s claim – the segment taking place outside of Carlotta’s pad was indeed lensed in two different spots. Though location trickery is old hat in Hollywood, this was the first I’d heard of a scene shot in two entirely different places, then stitched together to appear as one. Appropriately intrigued, I set out to help Molly on her quest.

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Carlotta’s house pops up in one brief scene in Hail, Caesar! in which the starlet, who was inspired by real life “Brazilian Bombshell” Carmen Miranda, is picked up by cowboy actor Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) to go to a movie premiere. In the bit, the two characters are shown standing outside of Carlotta’s pad on a picturesque street greeting each other and making small talk. In reality, the two sides of the segment were lensed miles apart. Watching the illusory scene, which you can can do here, is quite jarring. Despite knowing the logistics, the whole thing was done so seamlessly that I could hardly believe it was not all shot in the same spot.

Though Molly had already tracked down the Hollywood Hills street where Hobie’s portion of the segment was lensed, she was looking for the gorgeous Spanish Colonial Revival that served as the backdrop for Carlotta’s.

As denoted in the L.A. Weekly article (and as Molly informed me), Hobie’s side of the scene was filmed at the intersection of Grace and Whitley Avenues in the Hollywood Hills. Location manager John Panzarella, who also worked on L.A. Confidential, explains, “Joel and Ethan [Coen] are not shy about cheating reverses; they really embrace it. They want the visual they have conceived.” That visual consisted of Hobie performing a dazzling array of lasso tricks while waiting for Carlotta on a sleepy street corner. Panzarella says, “Whitley Terrace was perfect for that, with the view of Hollywood in the background.” The only trouble was, there was no dwelling in the vicinity that matched the Cohens’ vision of Carlotta’s pad.

The directors instead found a place that fit the bill about three miles away in Los Feliz. While the L.A. Weekly article did not denote the home’s exact location, it did mention that the pad was designed by famed architect Paul Revere Williams in 1927. So I headed over to Google, where a quick search for “Paul Williams,” “Los Feliz,” and “1927” led me to this page on the Paul Revere Williams Project website about a dwelling at 4791 Cromwell Avenue. One look at the images posted told me it was the right spot!

The stunning 5,211-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 4-bath property looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, though the film definitely showcased it through a 1950s-style Hollywood filter which muted its color palette a bit.

In real life, the home is known as the Blackburn Residence in honor of its initial owners Bruce and Lula Blackburn, who hailed from Missouri, but moved to Los Angeles in the early 1900s. Initially settling in West Adams, once Bruce found financial success thanks to his invention of a roll-up window screen, he commissioned Williams to design the large Los Feliz estate.

Williams (who also gave us Johnny Weissmuller’s Bel Air home, the famed Perino’s restaurant, and Sloane’s house from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) incorporated Bruce’s innovative screens into his design. They made such an impression on the prolific architect that he used them in many of his later works, as well.

The sprawling Blackburn Residence also boasts 12 rooms, 2.5 stories, an elevator, a triple fireplace, ornate tile work, wrought iron detailing throughout, vaulted ceilings, a grand 2-level arched entry, and a lush 0.35-acre plot of land.

The home continued to be owned by the Blackburn family until 1978, when it was offloaded by Bruce and Lula’s daughter, Elizabeth. The property, which is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #913, last sold in November 2003 for $2,199,000 and, per Zillow, is worth a whopping $4.5 million today!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Big THANK YOU to Molly for challenging me to find this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Blackburn Residence, aka Carlotta’s house from Hail, Caesar!, is located at 4791 Cromwell Avenue in Los Feliz. The portions of the scene featuring Hobie were filmed at a different spot – on Grace Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. More specifically, Hobie’s car was parked in front of the entrance to the condominium complex at 1979 Grace Avenue and he practiced his rope tricks at the intersection of Grace Avenue and Whitley Avenue.

September 7, 2012September 6, 2012

The McGinley Residence – Where Robert F. Kennedy Is Said to Have Spent His Last Night

Another Lafayette Square-area home that was mentioned in the “Affairs of Estate” article that I blogged about yesterday was the property located at 1821 South Victoria Avenue, where, according to author Ann Herold, Robert F. Kennedy spent the last night of his life. And while that assertion would be extremely hard to prove (and some sites speculate that the senator’s last night was spent either at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City or the Malibu home of director John Frankenheimer), because the Victoria Avenue residence belonged to RFK’s godfather’s son at the time, it is an entirely likely possibility. So after stopping by the incorrectly identified Leave It to Beaver house this past Saturday afternoon, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over to stalk the place.

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The residence that originally stood at 1821 South Victoria Avenue was constructed in the Prairie School-style by Emmett G. Martin in 1924. In 1939, McGinley Oil Company-heir Charles E. McGinley commissioned Paul R. Williams – the legendary architect who also designed the now-defunct Perino’s restaurant (which I blogged about here) and the Just Married mansion (which I blogged about here) – to remodel and enlarge the dwelling. What ended up happening, though, according to the Paul R. Williams Project website, was a complete refab after which only the original home’s foundation remained. McGinley also purchased two neighboring plots of land during that time, essentially tripling the size of his lot. Williams’ remodel, which became known as the McGinley residence, transformed the house into a Classical Regency Revival-style manse and enlarged the property to 6 bedrooms, 4 baths, and 5,952 square feet. At the time, the place looked quite a bit different than it does today. While the façade remains exactly the same shape as it did during the 1939 re-construction, it appears as though the abode was originally painted white, as you can see here. I prefer the unpainted red brick, myself, as it reminds me of the Home Alone house – one of my favorite movie houses of all time.

As I mentioned above, Charles McGinley’s father, oil tycoon Walter T. McGinley, was Robert F. Kennedy’s godfather. And although Walter passed away in 1932, more than thirty years before RFK was assassinated, it is entirely plausible that Kennedy and his family spent some time with Charles while in the area that week – including the night of June 3rd, 1968, Kennedy’s last full night alive. Late the next evening, June 4th, it was announced that the senator had won the California Primary and he gave a short speech in the Embassy Room of the Ambassador Hotel just after midnight on June 5th. Following the speech, Kennedy and his entourage exited through the Ambassador’s kitchen area, where he was shot four times by Sirhan Sirhan. RFK was first taken to Central Receiving Hospital and then Good Samaritan Hospital where he passed away at 1:44 a.m. on June 6th, almost 26 hours after he had been shot. You can check out a more detailed chronology of his assassination on the fabulous FindADeath website here.

Ironically enough, while we were stalking the McGinley residence, the owners’ son-in-law happened to come outside and we got to chatting. When I mentioned the recent Los Angeles Magazine article and his in-laws’ home’s connection to Robert F. Kennedy, the gentleman was absolutely bowled over with excitement and ran right inside to let them know the news. I so love it when homeowners are not only nice about me taking photographs of their property, but are also excited about to learn new things about their residence’s history. Smile

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The McGinley residence, where Robert F. Kennedy is reported to have spent his last night, is located at 1821 South Victoria Avenue in the Lafayette Square neighborhood of Los Angeles.